2G scam: CBI ready to name Dayalu Ammal, Kanimozhi in chargesheet

NEW DELHI: With assembly polls in Tamil Nadu to be over on Wednesday, the Central Bureau of Investigation is ready to name Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal and his daughter Kanimozhi in a supplementary chargesheet likely to be filed in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

The chargesheet, to be filed by April 25, will focus on the money trail involving DB Realty, the company jointly owned by Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, and Kalaignar TV, the channel owned by Tamil Nadu's first family. Balwa-Goenka, promoters of DB Realty, own around 46% stake in Swan Telecom, which is now called Etisalat DB.

Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha member from DMK, and her step-mother Dayalu Ammal had been questioned on March 11 by the investigating agency on the source of funding of Kalaignar TV. They had also been questioned about a host of other issues pertaining to the 2G allocation scam, which has come to dominate the state's electoral landscape.

With the 2G scam, which has already consumed DMK's propaganda secretary A Raja, during whose tenure as the telecom minister the irregularities in allocating the licences took place, topping the state's political discourse in the run-up to the elections, DMK, which has been in saddle in Tamil Nadu for the last 10 years, finds itself on the back-foot. The naming of his wife and daughter in the supplementary chargesheet is certain to complicate matters for Karunanidhi, as he could come under the direct firing line of his adversaries.

Kalaignar TV and its managing director Sharad Kumar too will be named by CBI in the supplementary chargesheet for the broadcaster company's alleged links with Swan Telecom.

CBI has faced a first-rate dilemma on putting Kanimozhi and Dayalu Ammal in the same bracket. Like Sharad Kumar, Kanimozhi too has a 20% stake in Kalaignar TV, while Dayalu Ammal owns a 60% share. The agency, therefore, would have faced charges of political partisanship if it had opted to omit Kanimozhi and her step-mother from the chargesheet. Kanimozhi and her step-mother had been examined together on March 11 in the presence of Sharad Kumar at the DMK eadquarters in Chennai. Their interrogation had continued for three-and-a-half hours.

Besides the source of funding of Kalaignar TV, the family-owned broadcast venture, Dayalu Ammal, it is learnt, had also been questioned about the financial sourcing of a big furniture-cum-interiors shop located in a plush locality in Chennai. The venture has been floated by Karunanidhi's wife, and agency officials believe that it may have been funded by money gained from the 2G spectrum scam.